February 11, 2017

V6 Review from Pocket Lint - "Better than Sky Q"?

Overall Pocket Lint gives the V6 a positive review and concludes:

There is absolutely no doubt in our minds that if you are an existing Virgin Media TV customer you should upgrade to the V6 box...
The fact that the box works so well with an existing TiVo device to provide a multiroom solution should be considered too. It’s a great upgrade option for existing TV subscribers.

"The Sky Q Silver box hardware supports up to HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2," a Sky representative told us. "At launch the Sky Q Silver is limited in software for up to 1080p output conforming to the HDMI 1.4b standard – this configuration will be updated to enable 2160p UHD output utilising HDMI 2.0 and HDCP2.2 when Sky makes Ultra HD services available later in 2016."

Alan I'm not sure how to read your post, and I apologise if I've read it wrong but it sounds as if your confusing the number of ports on the back of the V6 to the actual specification of that HDMI.

All V6 boxes have 1 HDMI output socket at the back but it's specification is HDMI 2.0 and It's a newer HDMI standard. it's capable of sending out 4K signals with HDR at 60fps. (Although Though Virgin don't currently have channels and content in 4K at the moment but it's future proof)

If the Sky Q report is correct and the HDMI socket is a HDMI 1.4 port, that means it can send out 4K signals but at a limited 24fps. Which means no HDR. It doesn't carry enough bandwidth and can only carry colour depths of 8bit.

The HDMI2.0 standard however can easily carry 8bit but also supports 10bit and 12bit colour depths.

Hi, I had my new V6 installed yesterday and I am very impressed with both its speed and picture quality,my house is a old house which has thick walls and celling's and I could never get a reliable Wi-Fi connection from my super hub3 which was positioned upstairs so I use the superhub3 in modem mode and use a netgear router.The V6 is showing a 85% signal on Wi-Fi, the old Tivo box outputted 1080i were the V6 outputs 1080p and I can see a definite picture quality improvement.

I really think you should update your original post. Sky have already updated their port to HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 (necessary for 4K/50, only 4K/24/25/30 was possible with HDMI 1.4) and have said they will update for HDR in the future.

I've updated the post and removed the reference to Sky Q lacking HDMI 2. I don't have Sky (never have, probably never will) so I am dependent on professional site expertise regarding the Sky hardware. Pocket Lint is usually accurate and they have now updated the HDMI information in their review.